This article is from the October 2002 Issue of Update.
A website has defaulted(?) itself as my homepage. Despite re-setting internet options via tools to my preferred homepage, this site (www.istarthere.com) keeps coming back. Is there a way I can get rid of it? I installed webwasher and zone alarm as recommended in your column but it still got through.
You're the victim of something that is known as page hijacking. There are a number of ways in which this can have occurred, from simple browsing to downloading and installing software. Sometimes you can simply change it in the options menu, end of story. In your case, however, the program has probably installed itself in your start-up menu, so it will change back regardless of what you do. There are various ways to sort the problem out, but rather than list them myself, it's easiest to point you towards www.cexx.org/hphijack.htm which should tell you all you need to know. Failing that, do a Google search for 'page hijacking' and you'll find a lot of other resources that should sort it out for you.
Can I find on the internet what are the most frequently searched for words? I know some engines show you in real time what people are searching for, but I'd like something more reliable and informative.
Yes, there's a product called Wordtracker. The commercial use of the product is to allow you to input terms appropriate for your business or organisation and see which terms relate to them so that a web author can concentrate on the keywords that people are actually searching for. Wordtracker does this by monitoring some of the large multi-search engines and, as a by-product, they create lists of the most searched for words. A good collection of these can be found at www.searchengineguide.com/wt/ with the top 500 words per week, over a two-month period.
I know search engines pay attention to the words they find on a web page, particularly those at the beginning. However, my page is quite complicated, with various tables and so on. I'm really not sure what the search engine is seeing! Any clues?
Free text search engines send out what are called 'spiders' to visit a page and copy the data back to home base. The relevance ranking system then kicks in. As you say, one of the ways an engine works out if a page is relevant is by seeing where keywords appear on a page. You can get a good idea of exactly what the spider is seeing (and by implication the words that a search engine will pay particular attention to) by visiting www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/sim_spider.cgi and inputting the full URL of the page that you're interested in. You'll then see a listing of the words and the order that the spider sees them. It's a freebie, so try it out!
Site of the month
I'm writing this in nice warm weather and, to be honest, work isn't necessarily the first thing on my mind. Consequently I think it's time for another 'silly' site. If you're a jigsaw freak, visit Jigzone (www.jigzone.com/). It gives you literally hundreds of jigsaws to complete, with various levels of complexity. You can also become a (free) member of the site and submit your own pictures which will be turned into jigsaws that you can use on your own website.
Phil Bradley is an internet consultant, trainer, web designer and author. Visit www.philb.com for free information on internet introductions, search engine articles, web design tips and a host of other free information. Recently published: Getting and Staying Noticed on the Web. If you have any questions about the internet send an email to philb@philb.com with the subject header 'column query'.